A microneedle patch tattoo is pressed to the pores and skin. Credit score: Georgia Tech
Scientists Develop Painless Tattoos That Can Be Self-Administered
Think about getting painlessly tattooed by a pores and skin patch containing microscopic needles, as an alternative of sitting in a tattoo chair for hours enduring painful punctures. Researchers on the Georgia Institute of Know-how (Georgia Tech) have developed low-cost, painless, and cold tattoos that may be self-administered. They’ve many functions, from medical alerts to monitoring neutered animals to cosmetics.
“We’ve miniaturized the needle in order that it’s painless, however nonetheless successfully deposits tattoo ink within the pores and skin,” mentioned Mark Prausnitz, principal investigator on the paper. “This might be a method not solely to make medical tattoos extra accessible, but additionally to create new alternatives for beauty tattoos due to the convenience of administration.”
Prausnitz introduced the analysis within the journal iScience on September 14, with co-author Track Li, a former Georgia Tech postdoctoral fellow. Prausnitz is Regents’ Professor and J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair within the College of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Tattoos are utilized in drugs for a number of functions. These embrace protecting up scars, guiding repeated most cancers radiation remedies, or restoring nipples after breast surgical procedure. Tattoos may also be used as an alternative of bracelets as medical alerts to speak severe medical circumstances corresponding to epilepsy, diabetes, or allergic reactions.
A magnified view of a microneedle patch with inexperienced tattoo ink. Credit score: Georgia Tech
Numerous beauty merchandise utilizing microneedles are already in the marketplace — principally for anti-aging. Nevertheless, creating microneedle expertise for tattoos is new. Prausnitz is a veteran on this space. He has studied microneedle patches for years to painlessly administer medication and vaccines to the pores and skin with out the necessity for hypodermic needles.
“We noticed this as a possibility to leverage our work on microneedle expertise to make tattoos extra accessible,” Prausnitz mentioned. “Whereas some individuals are prepared to just accept the ache and time required for a tattoo, we thought others would possibly want a tattoo that’s merely pressed onto the pores and skin and doesn’t harm.”
Remodeling Tattooing
Tattoos typically use massive needles to puncture repeatedly into the pores and skin to get picture. It’s a time-consuming and painful course of. The Georgia Tech group has developed microneedles which might be smaller than a grain of sand and are constructed of tattoo ink encased in a dissolvable matrix.
“As a result of the microneedles are manufactured from tattoo ink, they deposit the ink within the pores and skin very effectively,” mentioned Li, the lead writer of the research.
On this method, the microneedles will be pressed into the pores and skin simply as soon as after which dissolve. They depart the ink within the pores and skin after a couple of minutes with out bleeding.
Tattooing Method
Though most microneedle patches for prescription drugs or cosmetics have dozens or tons of of microneedles organized in a sq. or circle, microneedle patch tattoos imprint a design that may embrace letters, numbers, symbols, and pictures. By arranging the microneedles in a selected sample, every microneedle acts like a pixel to create a tattoo picture in any form or sample.
The researchers begin with a mildew containing microneedles in a sample that varieties a picture. They fill the microneedles within the mildew with tattoo ink and add a patch backing for handy dealing with. The ensuing patch is then utilized to the pores and skin for a couple of minutes, throughout which period the microneedles dissolve and launch the tattoo ink. Tattoo inks of varied colours will be integrated into the microneedles, together with black-light ink that may solely be seen when illuminated with ultraviolet mild.
A microneedle patch tattoo is held by inventor, Mark Prausnitz. Credit score: Georgia Tech
Prausnitz’s lab has been researching microneedles for vaccine supply for years and realized they might be equally relevant to tattoos. With help from the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Canines, Prausnitz’s group began engaged on tattoos to determine spayed and neutered pets, however then realized the expertise might be efficient for individuals, too.
The tattoos had been additionally designed with privateness in thoughts. The builders even created patches delicate to environmental components corresponding to mild or temperature modifications, the place the tattoo will solely seem with ultraviolet mild or greater temperatures. This supplies sufferers with privateness, revealing the tattoo solely when desired.
The research demonstrated that the tattoos might final for no less than a 12 months and are more likely to be everlasting. This additionally makes them viable beauty choices for individuals who need an aesthetic tattoo with out the chance of an infection or the ache related to conventional tattoos. Microneedle tattoos might alternatively be loaded with non permanent tattoo ink to deal with short-term wants in drugs and cosmetics.
Microneedle patch tattoos may also be used to encode info within the pores and skin of animals. Fairly than clipping the ear or making use of an ear tag to animals to point sterilization standing, a painless and discreet tattoo will be utilized as an alternative.
“The purpose isn’t to switch all tattoos, which are sometimes works of magnificence created by tattoo artists,” Prausnitz mentioned. “Our purpose is to create new alternatives for sufferers, pets, and individuals who desire a painless tattoo that may be simply administered.”
Reference: “Microneedle patch tattoos” by Track Li, Youngeun Kim, Jeong Woo Lee and Mark R. Prausnitz, 14 September 2022, iScience.
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105014
Prausnitz has co-founded an organization known as Micron Biomedical that’s creating microneedle patch expertise, bringing it additional into scientific trials, commercializing it, and in the end making it accessible to sufferers.
Prausnitz and several other different Georgia Tech researchers are inventors of the microneedle patch expertise used on this research and have possession curiosity in Micron Biomedical. They’re entitled to royalties derived from Micron Biomedical’s future gross sales of merchandise associated to the analysis. These potential conflicts of curiosity have been disclosed and are overseen by the Georgia Institute of Know-how.
